Sam Abuelsamid  0:00  
Coming up on episode 261 of wheel bearings got the single motor Pollstar to the Toyota Corolla cross the Acura Integra the F 150. Raptor, the Jeep Grand Cherokee for BI E, more impressions of Dodge Charger Daytona SRT, wrap up of Monterey car week, bad touchscreens, Lamborghini rule camp, not being able to rely on power alone and more all that coming up next.

This is Episode 261, a wheel bearings and we've got the whole crew back together again. I'm Sam Abuelsamid. From guidehouse insights.

Nicole Wakelin  0:44  
And I am Nicole Wakelin. From the faster women podcast.

Roberto Baldwin  0:47  
I am Roberto Baldwin from Engadget.

Nicole Wakelin  0:55  
Somewhere out there.

Sam Abuelsamid  0:58  
All right. Who wants to go first?

Nicole Wakelin  1:01  
I'll go first. I'll go first. I'm ready this time. All right, go first. I don't often I can say that. I have had two vehicles because we had the week we skipped so I have two vehicles. I'm going to do the one that I had longer ago, which my memory is not as good as so ask me fewer questions about this one, Sam. This is the Ford F 150. Raptor.

Sam Abuelsamid  1:18  
Oh, I got lots of questions about this one. Dang it.

Nicole Wakelin  1:21  
So I have the Raptor, which is always a hoot to drive, especially when the place that you have to drive it most is downtown Boston. Let me tell ya. That was a thing. If you ever wonder if this feels big, find your nearest big city and attempt to drive it. And you will feel like you're going to take out every lamp post every curb, every every everything. Like it's so big in a city is not made for cities, which truly it isn't. But I have the proof. So the raptors, they're off road racing, you're badass and you go out there and you go crashing over the dunes and you're gonna do stuff

Sam Abuelsamid  1:56  
no one else did. And most of them just get around cities. Yeah, exactly. You

Roberto Baldwin  2:00  
hope you're gonna be one day,

Nicole Wakelin  2:02  
you aspire to be that guy. So if you aspire to be that guy, this truck will actually do all that. I mean, it is capable as heck, if you are someone who's going to do that. It's one of those vehicles that the capability that this has, is far beyond even what most of the folks who will really go out there and drive it in the dirt are going to do with it, what it can do, it almost needs like the hands of a professional to really put it to its limits. Everybody else, if you want to go out there and you want to drive in the document go really fast. Cool, this truck has got you covered, you can do it as fast as you can probably drive and manage this truck can manage you. It has a 3.5 liter EcoBoost V 610 speed automatic transmission there standard all wheel drive, it has all these extra bits and pieces to make it off road worthy, so that you can you don't have to worry that if you get some error and you come down, you're gonna damage your suspension, you're not just gonna go and keep on going and be perfectly happy. The neat thing about this though, as much as it was cumbersome to say the least driving it in a big city it is it is hard to drive it in a city. But driving on the highway, a lot of vehicles that are really offered focus once you take them on the highway, they're miserable. Because the tire noise and the bounce that you have every little tiny pothole, you go over every little crack in the pavement, you don't just go over it, you sort of bounce over it because the suspension system is just not made to be managing smooth roads with little bumps. It kind of wants to treat everything like you have gone off a jump and you're like No, it's just the city streets. And the

Sam Abuelsamid  3:35  
previous gen raptor was really like that. And it had a lot of that soft floatiness. And I really didn't like driving that one on the road.

Nicole Wakelin  3:43  
Yeah, on road it was. It's hard like you think oh, that's not really gonna matter yet. Take that thing for one hour drive on the highway, or on a side road where you feel like it's constantly bouncing so much that it forces you to keep more attention and keep more control the steering wheel over long distances that gets really that gets weary and you get tired of that. The nice thing about this is I drove it back and forth to Boston I think like three or four times because it was just what I had to do this week. It was really nice on highways. It was nice and even like either going high speeds in highway traffic changing lanes. We drive really super aggressively in Boston you don't just change lanes you change lanes. So there's this Quick Left right thing. It stayed planted you didn't feel that overly swayed kind of back and forth motion that makes you think like well, I really have to work to stick keep control. And just It was surprisingly quiet even like you hear the rumble that engine there is no doubt you have a powerful engine under the hood. But it's never this annoying thing where you think I couldn't drive this for five hours. You could totally take this on a road trip that was just a pavement road trip. The drawback to that would be that you will go broke putting gas in it. It gets 15 City 16 highway.

Roberto Baldwin  4:57  
Ooh, that's a spread so Oh, it's

Nicole Wakelin  5:01  
I know it's a really big spread, you know, huge spread 15 to 16. So, the fuel economy isn't great. Not great. But

Roberto Baldwin  5:11  
if you bought that vehicle, yes,

Nicole Wakelin  5:14  
exactly. Like, it looks like, you're probably not sitting there going. Prius or raptor Prius, or Raptor? No, if you're the person looking for a Prius, this isn't even on your radar. If you want fuel economy, you're not even looking at this, you saw this and went no, thank you, and then just kept on walking. And there are F 150s. Like, get yourself a lightning or something. If when someday, you know, get one of the other power trains. This is not that one. This is for the person who wants to be able to, to do some offers serious off road driving, or honestly. And it sounds so stupid to say because so many people you buy a car, there's capability you may or may not ever use, but you want your car to look cool. Whatever cool is for you, where they're cool is a sleek little sedan where they're cool is an SUV weather cools a truck. If you want a truck that looks cool in the truck world, this will do it. I mean, it looks amazing. So I, I There are drawbacks to the Raptor, but I love it because it does exactly what it's supposed to do. It is as build.

Sam Abuelsamid  6:16  
Okay, is that fair? That that is perfectly fair. And, you know, I mean, that that's really all you can expect out of a vehicle is that, you know, whatever it was designed to do that it executes on that mission, whatever that mission might be. And, you know, the, the job of a raptor of an F 150 Raptor is to, you know, be able to do all that off road stuff. And, and still be reasonable to drive on the road when you're in between your off road missions. So you know if it if it does that well, great.

Nicole Wakelin  6:51  
Exactly. So you know, for that reason, I like it. If that's not what you're looking for, then look at f 150

Roberto Baldwin  6:58  
If you live in downtown Boston. Yeah,

Nicole Wakelin  7:02  
probably if you're mostly downtown Boston, maybe no.

Sam Abuelsamid  7:07  
You do have enough sidewall on those tires that you know it will survive Most Boston potholes. So there's that.

Nicole Wakelin  7:14  
I'd say like 75% of Boston potholes will not actually swallow the tire. But there are that 25% that could potentially swallow the whole Toronto and on and on. But, you know, we have the worst roads in Boston. They're horrific. They're awful. And as soon as some are good, it's like oh, they paved this road. Oh god, what's happened on this other one? Like they've ripped something else apart? You know?

Sam Abuelsamid  7:35  
So have you driven the ramp? TRX Yes. What would you choose the ramp? TRX Gosh, dang

Nicole Wakelin  7:43  
it. These are always so hard.

Roberto Baldwin  7:45  
Which one rides better?

Nicole Wakelin  7:47  
The TRX Yeah, I love it when it comes to I know right? And when it comes to ride quality, and also just the interior now the interior the Raptor is really nice. And it's a really it doesn't feel like a like a work truck at all. It's beautiful. It has all these Raftery hints and it's quality materials and it's visually appealing and it's comfortable but I feel like I just right now still feel like RAM even though when did they first introduced RAM it's the newest generation it's been a little bit now.

Sam Abuelsamid  8:14  
2018 Yeah, so I still

Nicole Wakelin  8:17  
feel like they're they're ahead of the competition on interior quality and ride quality I don't think anyone's quite quite gotten to where they are I mean they are going to have to up their game next generation for sure. But I feel like everyone else is still trying to creep up to what the bar that RAM set so if you made me pick between raptor and TRX I would pick TRX

Sam Abuelsamid  8:38  
Yeah, I think the only the only full size pickup I think that matches where RAM is least in terms of ride quality not necessarily interior is the lightning the lightning you know I think matches and maybe even goes past the RAM on ride quality.

Nicole Wakelin  8:55  
Yeah if you write the lot the Lightning is the exception but that's a year also it's like a very like if it was just overall yes that was a nice ride quality but you're it's also that Evie thing like if Ram had an Eevee right now I wonder if that would still be the case do you know what I mean? Yeah, so it's it's it's it's a hard comparison but you're totally right Sam the Lightning has the smoothest most like refined ride of the lot

Roberto Baldwin  9:19  
just goes and of course no slipping there's no nothing it just feels so planted

Sam Abuelsamid  9:24  
and a lightning is not going to go a lot of the places where you can go with the

Nicole Wakelin  9:30  
lake Exactly. Yeah, you're not gonna you're gonna jump things and you're gonna break your truck don't do that.

Roberto Baldwin  9:38  
Oh go jump in your lightning jumping your

Nicole Wakelin  9:41  
lightning don't get the lightning get the rafter instead. If that's what you're that's what you want to do on the

Roberto Baldwin  9:45  
weekends. Go breaking my heart in my truck.

Sam Abuelsamid  9:50  
All right. What was the other one you had

Nicole Wakelin  9:52  
the other one which is still in my Drive. Right right this minute is the 2022 Jeep Grand Cherokee Overland four by E But I just love that this this is like a small dissertation just saying the name of

Roberto Baldwin  10:05  
a long time. It's like a Porsche. It's like a mirror hybrid eat turbo pan up Nia.

Nicole Wakelin  10:11  
Right. It's like the entire top of this piece of paper is just the name of this vehicle, right? So this is the plug in hybrid. It has an all electric range of 25 miles and it gets the MPG ie the combined gas electric is 56 miles per gallon. So a little tiny bit better, better than the 15 or the Raptor. And it you know, it's the Grand Cherokee is actually really beautiful vehicle. I mean, they have it's, I'm driving the lips as I smack the mic, I'm driving the Overland. So you'd have like a leather interior, you've got plenty of room. It has all the bells and whistles. And the other one I have has the Macintosh audio system, which I think has like a million speakers

Roberto Baldwin  10:54  
to it. I've lost number 2 million speaker 18

Nicole Wakelin  10:57  
million speakers got Macintosh audio, it has the extra infotainment screen I think they call it they call it a passenger interactive display or something. But there's one that's just for the front passenger that you totally cannot see if you're the driver. So there's no temptation to be like, What are they doing over there? It's so that's always kind of neat and makes it it makes this field truly like a luxury vehicle. You get these little things that you don't find in just any car. You know that that screen that's cool to have the passenger side screen.

Sam Abuelsamid  11:26  
Do you ever us evaluate that for you?

Nicole Wakelin  11:28  
Oh, yeah, he's we've had other Jeeps that had this cool thing like the Grand wagoneer or wagoneer. One of them has it on one of the trims. He played around with that. It was it was funny because I love my husband, but when he's chatty it was like well now it's just like having rear entertainment for the kids. Go play with that screen. Aneesh. He was playing with everything going through everything. Oh, this works. That works. I like this. I don't like that. Overall, he gave it a thumbs up. He liked it. He thought it was neat. He would have liked to have access to more the functions, because it doesn't have everything that the infotainment screen has it. He wouldn't

Roberto Baldwin  12:01  
have limited. Yeah, he wouldn't. You have no idea what's going on here. Because that wasn't working. Like when I hadn't when I had it. I was like, Is that thing working? You know, like, yeah, yeah. Cuz you because you going on what's happening?

Nicole Wakelin  12:11  
You can't see it and to see it like when we were parked, I leaned over ones like how, how far does the driver have to like, peer over into the passenger side. I literally had my head like practically right next to his head before I could even see it. So there's no way as the driver. Yeah, which is good. There's no way unless you're practically sitting in the passenger's lap that you can see this when you were the driver, you can't do it, which is exactly how it should be because you shouldn't be distracted by that stuff. This is a as equipped the way that I had it. And it had like the extra stuff. There's like, there's that interactive displays like $1,000. There's an advanced tech group that was on mine, it's another two grand, I got fancy paint and a luxury and other tech group. So altogether, we're looking at a $75,000 car. So it's not cheap. But what I will say is it felt like a $75,000 car it feel has that luxury vibe inside the quality, the materials, the style of it, it's nice to drive, you know, you have all the capability that you'd expect in a jeep, still not wrapped your level. Again, if you want that don't go jump in your Jeep can't do that in the Grand Cherokee, go get a raptor but it or go get it TRX I'll stay on brand for them. But it's if you're looking for that roomy, upscale vehicle for your family and you don't want like just enough room for everybody. You want plenty of room for everybody and plenty of room for cargo. And that little extra efficiency of having the plug in powertrain. You know, it's so fun. It gets kind of fun to plug in a car like we don't, there. I wasn't driving enough to use all the Eevee range and all of the gas range in this car this week. But yet I come home and my husband has plugged it in because we have the plug for our car. Like, why didn't you play? We don't need to think it's just fun. I want to charge them both. I want to fully charge vehicles in my driveway.

Roberto Baldwin  13:55  
Just like you plug in your phone, you plug it becomes part of like a thing that has to happen.

Sam Abuelsamid  14:01  
part of your routine.

Nicole Wakelin  14:02  
Yeah, he's like I can plug in my mind cell turn. I'm gonna plug in yours and chargers up. So. So that's nice. And I like how it dries or like how it handles I don't really have issues with it. I think the biggest issue is, you know, this does go definitely into luxury pricing. $75,000 is not a cheap vehicle. And even if you take off some of these packages, you're still looking in the 60s which again, still not a cheap.

Roberto Baldwin  14:25  
Okay, so Land Rover is the Range Rover of America. Or the No wait, hold on stop. Is there? Yeah. I see I do this podcast very early in my time. It is he's drinking Red Bull folks are drinking Red Bull and T Jeep is the Land Rover of America. There we go. That is accurate. Well, way too difficult to say. Okay, John,

Sam Abuelsamid  14:48  
and I think you know this, at least of what's available in the market right now. The vehicle that is probably the closest direct competitor to this This is actually the rivian r1. S, the SUV driven the r1 s or the you've driven the pickup,

Nicole Wakelin  15:07  
I drove the pickup I have not driven that SUV driven the pickup not the SUV. Yeah, I mean,

Sam Abuelsamid  15:12  
it's the same thing except you know, with the longer route longer. Right, right. Right. Yeah. So, what? Based on your experience of the rivian? Yeah, how, you know, how, how would you compare that against the jeep? Because price wise, you know, the Caribbean is a little more expensive. Okay. You know, I think I think you're looking for the r1 s, you know, I think they start around 87. Okay, and it's all electric. Right? But you know, it's very clearly in that premium. Very off road capable.

Nicole Wakelin  15:43  
If you were to take out the Okay, one's fully electric and one's like partly electric, let's let's, you know, even that out and say that's not part of the equation, if it's just like sort of looking at the vehicle itself, otherwise, the Caribbean has this more of a streamlined, less traditional interior. It's very elegant. It's very nice, but it's very so clean. It's almost utilitarian in some ways, you know, it's very spartan interior, although it's very nice. I feel like the Jeep high end Jeeps overall, give you more of a traditional, like, I have the fancy, you know, contrast stitching and everything feels more I think what most people expect of a luxury car. I think, for some people, you sit down in a rivian or some of the new EVs that are have this very future forward kind of look that almost makes them feel Spartan like wait a minute, I'm not getting a real luxury car you hear there's not enough in here to make it look like luxury, not the flashy way, just in a certain level of adornment that it doesn't have so dazzled it's not as bedazzled it's not as bedazzled as others Blinky isn't that as Blinky as as Jeep or any of the other cars that get into that, you know, SUVs that get into that price point. So I think for that for me, personally, I prefer the look of the Jeep because I prefer that more traditional look. But if you're ready to move towards something that looks a little bit you know more streamlined more Star Trek

Sam Abuelsamid  17:05  
rivian Almost feels kind of Swedish in a way because you get rather and yeah real wood.

Roberto Baldwin  17:12  
Yeah, all the night

Sam Abuelsamid  17:13  
more. Yeah trained.

Nicole Wakelin  17:15  
It's absolutely a luxury interior and the materials are top notch that's an A but it's it's a very different type of luxury interior and I like something about the interior of the Jeeps. I just liked them. I like I just

Sam Abuelsamid  17:30  
feel more coddled.

Nicole Wakelin  17:31  
Yeah. Something about it. Like when there's, I don't want it to be like over the top, flashy and chroming garbage everywhere. I don't need that. But I just feel like, I want to sit down in a car. That's a luxury car, or at least that even if they don't consider themselves a luxury car and a luxury price point.

Roberto Baldwin  17:45  
Oh, this luxury. Yeah. is definitely very luxury.

Nicole Wakelin  17:50  
Right. But I mean, like cheap. I wouldn't think overall, you'd say it's a luxury brand. Because a wrangler isn't exactly a luxury. Do you know what I mean? Like they're not like all in with everything we build as luxury, although certainly they're pushing that direction. But I feel like I want to sit down in a car. That's a luxury price tag and feel like it's like yeah, this is good. This little cushy. This is a little fancy. I get cool. And I don't get that sense from a Rivia

Roberto Baldwin  18:13  
I think is more the I think the Jeep is more like Patagonia. Well, the rivian is more Rei. Like Arabian is more people. People driving Arabian are more often like they're buying it because like I can go surfing and I can stick snowboards and the Jeep is like, well, I can take my kids to lacrosse. Yeah. And I can traverse you know, the the Great Northwest, or, you know, they're great. They're in there in the snow in the rain and be coddled while doing it and people are probably on like at least three pairs of crocs.

Nicole Wakelin  18:44  
I would accept that I am more Patagonia than Rei. I can live with that assessment. Robbie.

Sam Abuelsamid  18:49  
Okay, so So, one more question before we move on. Okay. You and Russ on a wrangler for Buddy. Yes. If you were buying today instead of 12 months ago. Would you still go for the Wrangler or the Grand Cherokee? Because you get the same powertrain?

Nicole Wakelin  19:07  
Okay, yeah, and we bought a Rubicon because honestly, I don't think that that like a price point price point aside, like we're not considering the difference in price. Although I don't know how much of a difference there honestly, it's

Sam Abuelsamid  19:18  
but when I'm talking to friends in the upper 60s For Yeah, it's

Nicole Wakelin  19:20  
still not it's still wasn't Yeah, so. Okay, I my husband really, really, really, really, really, really, really wanted a Wrangler. So with both of these sitting in the driveway, he pick a wrangler just because he had that I want to wrangler he wanted to Wrangler. But if I had like if I had and I also my kids are both in college right so this is a car for a family you know you don't who needs this much space. If you don't, you don't have a family like kids you're putting in the back or you're not always having some that you don't need something that's big. If I did have kids that were at home if I did have this would be a compelling choice because it offers more room more comfort and a quieter ride. And then the Wrangler does. So if you're looking for that, I would go for the Grand Cherokee. If you don't need all that and you're looking for a little bit more, I'll see you can open the roof. Seriously, you can open

Roberto Baldwin  20:12  
you can keep your husband quiet with another screen.

Nicole Wakelin  20:14  
That's I know there is there is the husband. I'm going to call it you know, there's rear seat energy input. It's Husband, husband entertainment system up in the front. That's on that side. I mean, you can't get that in the Wrangler. So, but I think I think me personally would still get a regular. Okay. Yeah.

Roberto Baldwin  20:31  
All right, support that decision. Thanks. You're welcome. Robbie. Robbie seal of approval.

Sam Abuelsamid  20:41  
Robbie, do you give the car you were driving your seal of approval?

Roberto Baldwin  20:45  
I do. I was driving the Acura Integra a spec. This week. Well, not this week. Recently, I drove the 2023 Acura Integra A Spec Tech. I got the manual transmission version. I went to Monterey car week with Acura. And in order to get there because I live in the Bay Area and Monterey is really not that far away. They gave me this to drive down there and back and have a few days before and a few days after. And it is a fantastic that's what I'm going to call this fantastic. I think it's the I know a lot of people are like well, you know, it's just a civic it's on the you know, Civic Platform, you know, you can like that's fine. That's not a bad thing. That's that's completely fine that the clutch is outstanding. The transmission is outstanding drives. Well it's very comfortable. It's fun to drive. I had the had the the VTEC turbo four cylinder and I love V tech, just because I don't know v Tech has been the thing for gosh, 30 years, 40 years, 170 years. And Honda. Honda fans love their VTech 200 horsepower 1.5 liter engine. It was it was fun to drive. And there was a there's such a huge difference between comfort and sport that I hadn't like I was just you know, I got the car and I was just driving it down. And I realized I hadn't put in sport yet, which is weird. And I put in sport like oh gosh, because it was you know, it was nice driving comfort and students put in sport you'd like so much more power. They turned the VTEC they just turned it on. Like before it was sort of switched off. Like here you go. Yeah, it's you know, front wheel drive wonderful. It's just a really, really fun car. It's really great. If you're looking to sort of upgrade you're not insanely expensive performance driving. You know, this is this is this is sort of a and you're in your life, right? We'll drive vehicles if you're, you know, if you're not looking for Google Drive, or all wheel drive, this is definitely the car to get. When I was a kid and I had a I had a civic, I wanted an Integra, which I think everyone did. I think everyone who has a civic now all the 20s and the early 20 Something year olds, they're looking at the Integra, they're like oh, maybe we can get that. I know. I remember a whining about the fact that it is not a coupe, they now have a two door. That's essentially because they're using the same platform as Honda, they would have to build an entirely new platform in order to have a two door and Tegra so business wise, that's just that's just a dumb idea.

Sam Abuelsamid  23:15  
And nobody would buy it anyway. I mean, so

Roberto Baldwin  23:20  
anyway, so you just you know, I'm fine with four doors, because you get a manual transmission. And Honda Acura, they're still offering it, you should still buy it. You can't whine about not having manual transmissions in the market. If you don't buy cars manual transmissions. You can't drive around. You can't drive around the CRV saying save the manual and when it's time to buy a new car you buy another CRV I'm sorry. You have to buy the thing that you're whining about. If you know if you could afford it, I hopefully Yeah, no, I really liked it. Do I was sad to see it go. That's There you go. Okay, you're looking for some sort of nice stylish front wheel drive performance. Yeah, and

Sam Abuelsamid  24:08  
it's also reasonably practical because it's a hatchback

Roberto Baldwin  24:10  
Yeah, yeah, that was my extra Oh my my junk in

Nicole Wakelin  24:14  
the back of your fancy DJ equipment.

Roberto Baldwin  24:18  
No, but I did I you know what I had to do because I had to leave Monterey car week in order to go directly to band practice. So I had to drum pack and like lyrics and microphones and all this crap in the trunk of a car so yeah, so no, no, no, I enjoyed it. It's fun to drive again. It's just you know, just I just spent 30 minutes talking about the transmission and how nice that is. And but it's you know, that's kind of a given at this point. The combined fuel economy for this thing is 30 mpg. I did a lot of freeway driving but then once I you know, put it in Sport, probably got less. I was getting like 29 points. Saturday I think is what I got after a week and that includes driving around town a lot going back and forth and stuck in traffic driving on some back roads. So definitely, you know, up there I wasn't babying it trying to get the 36 Highway and yeah destination is $1,095 so ideal the vehicle itself was $37,395 because as the a spec

Nicole Wakelin  25:31  
patches need to point out I have you beat my jeep was 1795

Roberto Baldwin  25:35  
Wow yeah but they had they had a carry you know he has a battery and that extra that extra screen is so

Nicole Wakelin  25:41  
much bigger.

Sam Abuelsamid  25:42  
Well that is one of the areas where still Lantis is absolutely the leader is in destination chargers I mean they they have really moved the bar for the industry on destination chargers in entirely the wrong direction

Nicole Wakelin  26:00  
thanks jeep. Yeah, priority.

Roberto Baldwin  26:05  
You know, what I did like is the, the events on the Acura, they have like little joysticks that stick out, like little gear shifts, these four little gear shifts in the dashboard, you can move it around, you know exactly where the air is going to go. Because just point a little joystick where you want to go. For some reason I really, I enjoyed that.

Sam Abuelsamid  26:27  
You mean you didn't have to go down into a menu on a touch? guide it where you want

Roberto Baldwin  26:34  
the most? It's just don't even get me started on that. Now, just give us a little

Okay, no, okay, cool.

Sam Abuelsamid  26:50  
I had in the time since we last talked as a group that also had two vehicles, I had the Pollstar to single motor, I had previously driven the dual motor, which with its 402, foreign four horsepower was really really quick. The single motor is basically the exact same car minus the motor on the rear axle. And with just the one motor, but you still have the same battery, they crank up the juice a little bit to the motor. So you get 231 horsepower, out of this 243 foot pounds of torque, which is you know, as an Eevee, it's instant torque. So it actually feels like it's more than that, because it's just so responsive. Not having driven them back to back up sure that they the dual motor feels significantly quicker. But this one is, is quite quick enough that you know, I don't think anybody's really going to have a complaint with this. From a dynamic standpoint, the only very slight issue I had with this car was when I was pulling out of the neighborhood and got on it, you know, when I had the wheels turned slightly, I actually did get a little bit of torque steer, which you know, given the instant on torque nature was not totally surprising, but But yeah, I got a slight bit of torque steer that, you know, pretty sure I never experienced with the dual motor. But you know, it wasn't enough. It wasn't like going back to the old dodge caliber srt four if you ever drove one of those, whichever one you know, if you if you kind of just kind of squeezed the accelerator pedal a little bit it would pull over into the next lane. Coming over, if the wheels are in a straight line, you're fine only when you got the wheels cranked over you know as you're turning pull out of your neighborhood or something like that, and you get on it hard you'd feel just a slight tug in the steering wheel and it's not you know it's not snapping it's just a little tug which is fine reminder yeah other not the rest of this car is basically as it has been since it launched a year and a half or so ago. You know the design this one is very clearly this one and the Pole Star two or the Pole Star one the the plug in hybrid coupe that they launched the brand with you know, very much clearly transitional vehicles for the Pole Star brand as it separated itself from Volvo and you look at it you clearly see the Volvo design heritage in there you know if you took off the star logo and the grill and put on the the the iron hammer or the shield, Iron Shield, Volvo badge on there. It would look totally at home

Nicole Wakelin  29:49  
So is that what it's called an Iron Shield? So yeah,

Roberto Baldwin  29:53  
I can Volvo had to tell me that I'm like well, they just like dudes, but turns out it's iron. Yeah, that's an Iron Shield like The little circle with a little arrow saying I was just

Nicole Wakelin  30:03  
many days old when I learned, okay.

Roberto Baldwin  30:06  
I found I didn't find out like too far ago, like maybe three or four months ago. Like, oh, yeah, the iron like symbol. I'm like, Oh, so it's such as dudes.

Sam Abuelsamid  30:18  
So if you were to put the Volvo badge on the front of this thing, okay, you would not even think twice about it being, you know, a modern Volvo. As we get into the next models, the Pole Star Three that's launching towards the end of the year. And what comes beyond that, it starts there separating the Pole Star design away from, from Volvo a little bit more, it's still going to have the Thor's hammer, lighting signature, but everything else is going to change more. But as before, my only real complaint from a design perspective is just that the Beltline is so high that you do feel like you're sitting very low in it.

Nicole Wakelin  31:00  
I don't know what you're talking about. Mr. Giant over there.

Roberto Baldwin  31:03  
You remember it's made in Sweden.

Sam Abuelsamid  31:07  
For Vikings, for Vikings. Yes, exactly. But you know, it's a lovely car to drive. It has the the big center touchscreen with the Android automotive infotainment system on there. When you get in, you can log into your Google account, download your apps from the Play Store, you know, so I log in download Pocket Casts, I log into my Pocket Casts account and all of a sudden, my, you know, all my podcasts and you know, the stet you know where I'm what I'm listening to and what position I'm in at any given episode is right there. Only issue there was the refresh rate for when it updates to when it syncs back to the server. In the version in Android automotive, there's no option to change what the refresh rate is. So sometimes it takes a little while. So if you're, if you stop in the middle of a show, and then you go and pick it up on your phone later. If it's like, I think the refresh rate is probably a couple of hours or an hour or at least an hour before it updates server. So it might you might be in the wrong position in the episode. But that's a fairly minor detail. One of the complaints when the Pole Star two did come out. And same for the Volvo's that have the same basic infotainment system all skinned slightly differently is that at launch, it did not have support for Apple CarPlay that is there now it exists. I've has a plugged in an iPhone, you get the your Apple CarPlay on the screen there, you're all good if that's if that's your preference. And it all works really well. The range for the single motor version because it's lighter is a little bit longer than what you get the dual motor. So it goes from about 202 156 miles up to 270 miles. And you know I was on track to go you know to be able to get well over 270 with with with driving it around mix of city and highway driving. Really, really enjoyed it. And I think if you're if you're looking for something with that kind of premium Swedish feel to it. You know, that's not overly flashy, but you want something electric with a reasonable amount of range and decent performance. The Pollstar to single motor is a really good option. The base price on the single motor is $46,000. The the one I drove had $1,200 metallic paint, plus the $4,000 Plus package of gym includes the Harman Kardon premium, it's gonna say what does that do for the glass the glass room Disney

Roberto Baldwin  34:01  
plus you get

Sam Abuelsamid  34:03  
all the pluses? Well you with the plus you you do get a heat pump climate control system which is a little more efficient than the traditional resistive heating, you get heated rear seat heated steering wheel heated wiper nozzles also very, very fancy and cold climate. If you live in a warm climate, you you might be able to get way without but you do lose the glass roof in that case if you don't go with the PLUS package, power driver and passenger seats with power backrest and a few other assorted options. And then the pilot package gets you the pixel LED headlights with the light sequence LED front foglights 360 surround view camera, the driver the ADF package with Pilot Assist and adaptive cruise control. You know for 3200 bucks that seems a little pricey but you know it's probably one worth it to get some of the eight s stuff even if Pilot Assist is still kind of iffy but all in with the $1,300 destination charge $55,600 which you know for a premium sort of compact ish compact to mid size sedan shaped but hatchback functionality vehicle is good, you know, you know if you're looking for something premium like that, it's worth a look. And then the other thing I transitioned from that into the Toyota Corolla cross and this was the Corolla cross SLE with all wheel drive, okay, ooh, and to be honest, we just go the regular Corolla

Roberto Baldwin  35:51  
Toyota has a an SUV now for every since every three to four if you need some this three or four inches bigger, you know, it will make an SUV for that so they get in every every iteration of

Nicole Wakelin  36:04  
the Matroyshka doll so am I saying that? Yeah, there's just like there's so wedge, there's just there's just right up. There's so many in there. It's not like five there's like 50. And

Sam Abuelsamid  36:14  
to be fair, every automaker is doing Yeah, they are. This is not a Toyota phenom. The, the, the Corolla cross is fine, you know, is perfectly acceptable compact crossover. It's, it's smaller than the rav4. It's bigger than a Chr. It's, it kind of has the rav4 look in the shape to it, you know, which is fine. I don't mind the way it looks. My my complaint about the Corolla cross is the powertrain. It's got a two liter four cylinder, and a CVT and a two liter four cylinders, not necessarily a bad thing. But this one, it's 169 horsepower, and 150 foot pounds of torque, and the torque peak is between 44 and 4800 rpm. And when you combine something that has modest torque, that with a comes at a really high peak rpm with a CVT, it's not the most pleasant driving experience especially the way toy, a lot of grams are CVTs you know, where you get that motor boating effect where, okay, let's rev it up to the peak RPM, or the torque to the RPM for the peak torque and just sit there as you accelerate. And you know, so as you're pulling away from an intersection, you know, revving it. 4000 rpm. Okay, we'll get there and yeah, eventually.

Roberto Baldwin  37:54  
Where are you going? You don't need a slow down, buddy. Yeah, take it easy there,

Sam Abuelsamid  37:58  
buddy. It's a reasonably roomy vehicle. You know, for its for its size. It's perfectly acceptable amount of room. The XL, the all wheel drive, and the the performance is exacerbated by the fact that the SLE all wheel drive weighs a little over 3300 pounds curb weight. So it's not exactly a lightweight.

Roberto Baldwin  38:20  
I forgot that it's all wheel drive. So now I'm just like, Oh, so much more.

Sam Abuelsamid  38:23  
Yeah. Yeah, exactly. Yeah. Yeah. If, if you go with the front wheel drive, it's 34. The XL is 3170. So you're looking at about 150 pounds more that you're hauling around for the all wheel drive. So that's uh, yeah, I'd actually you know, if you live somewhere where winters are modest, at best, probably forego, you know, the cost and the weight of the of the all wheel drive. And just go with front wheel drive, and maybe the powertrain will be slightly less daisies laying over here, if you

Nicole Wakelin  39:03  
just look up like what the heck was that?

Sam Abuelsamid  39:09  
So, you know, it's a it's a perfectly acceptable vehicle. Now. You know, the, the one I had, you know, it was pretty much loaded up, had the, the nine speaker JBL audio system for almost $1,500, the $1,250 moonroof and assorted other things, and it can do a grand total of $32,419.

Roberto Baldwin  39:35  
Wow, that's, I mean, it starts at like 22 and a half.

Sam Abuelsamid  39:39  
Yeah, yes. When you're when you're up into that, you know, low to mid $30,000 price range. Not sure that this is the option that I would go for? No, yeah, there's, in fact, you know, at 3232 Four, I would probably try and see if I can Get a Kona Evie, because it's not that much more

Nicole Wakelin  40:04  
Robbie is that much of a Kona? Yeah,

Roberto Baldwin  40:05  
because ravey Yeah, you can get a cadet? Yeah, I think that's

Sam Abuelsamid  40:08  
3234 it's what? 34 Yeah. Yeah, I would try to swing that. And it's gonna be a rap. Much more fun vehicle to drive.

Roberto Baldwin  40:17  
Alright, yeah, you get the

Nicole Wakelin  40:18  
problem there are there are other comparable choices in price that are better to drive, which is a problem.

Sam Abuelsamid  40:24  
Yeah. And I haven't driven the, the, you know, the new HRV yet, so I can't really compare. You've driven it really?

Nicole Wakelin  40:33  
It's really good. Like I say, this is someone who did not like the old HRV the old HRV was

Roberto Baldwin  40:40  
just kind of slam together. It was like here, here's,

Nicole Wakelin  40:43  
like, don't pretend it didn't exist and just go with the new age and actually the new HRV I would recommend to somebody like the old one. I'd be like, don't do that. Don't not go do not go there. The new one is good. Good.

Roberto Baldwin  40:54  
And have you have you driven the kicks? The Nissan Kicks? Yeah, in fact have so would you would you recommend the kicks over the the Corolla cross because it kicks is less expensive. And it's you know, it's a lot less expensive. It's also just like your first car. But it's so good. It's like the there are two really great Nissan's right now, once the Z way up the top. The other ones the kicks. Yeah.

Nicole Wakelin  41:16  
Well, in fact, just the very bottom, they're doing great. Just just a few days

Sam Abuelsamid  41:19  
ago, I was walking my dog and walking with one of the neighbors. He was walking his dog. And he was saying is his niece 16 year old niece. Their parents wanted to buy a car. And it was looking for a recommendation. And I actually recommended the kicks. I said, you know the probably the best options for 16 year old either Nissan Kicks Hyundai venue or, you know, if they want to go with a sedan versus the Nissan Versa. You know, because you can you can get all of those for under 20 grand, or at least nominally get them for under 20. Grand. Probably 20. Grand market bottom.

Nicole Wakelin  41:57  
Isn't the kicks front wheel drive only though? I have that in my head? Yeah. It's the only drawback if you live someplace where you want to drive. It's from a drive only. Yeah.

Sam Abuelsamid  42:05  
But, you know, for, you know, for most people, even even in winter conditions, you know, front wheel drives can be fun. Yeah.

Roberto Baldwin  42:12  
So tire can we've had the tire discussion.

Nicole Wakelin  42:15  
Yeah, the tires that listen.

Sam Abuelsamid  42:18  
But you know, spend 1000 bucks on an extra set of wheels and tires instead of all wheel drive, and you'll be better off. So, yeah, I mean, I would, I would probably actually recommend the kicks cover this, you know, for like, was it 19 grand starting price for kicks? I'm like, yeah, it's cheap. Yeah. So, you know, and it's not as the powertrain is less annoying

Nicole Wakelin  42:43  
to get and it does it starts 19,009 90 Is the MSRP on the site this very minute, but still, it's under 20. Grand 9990. That's,

Sam Abuelsamid  42:51  
I mean, it's 12 is 12 grand cheaper than this thing. Yeah.

Nicole Wakelin  42:54  
And given the choice between the two, I take, I take the kicks for $12,000. If you're in that market, where you're like that price point where like prices is super concerning. You have a very tight budget. That's a huge amount of money. It's huge. It's not but especially for young buyers, that's against

Roberto Baldwin  43:08  
Arizona headrest, and which I could never figure out if they're actually working or not.

Sam Abuelsamid  43:13  
And the kicks does not have Twitter's old Entune infotainment system. Oh, yeah. Which the Corolla bras does? Oh, yeah. It doesn't have the new Toyota infotainment. So that's a

Roberto Baldwin  43:28  
bummer. Here's the new trailer one. What did I say this Toyota recently? Like? Alright, works.

Sam Abuelsamid  43:35  
Let's move on to some of the stuff that has happened since we last spoke.

Nicole Wakelin  43:39  
Stuff that has happened. Okay. Yeah,

Sam Abuelsamid  43:42  
lots lots has happened. First couple of things on here. We don't spend a whole lot of time on. But you know, since you guys weren't here last week, and I did, I had interviews last week I did. I talked to Tim can discuss who's the head of dodge? And I talked to Mickey Bligh, who's the Global Head of propulsion systems first Atlantis, about their dodges electrification strategy. And we saw while while Robbie was off, hobnobbing with the fancy people in Monterey, I was hanging out with with people that appreciate Hellcats

Roberto Baldwin  44:21  
like me, I can tell you that I say nobody Hobnob like me which is I'm like, Are you gonna get food or like I'm not staying in line with rich people.

Sam Abuelsamid  44:31  
So I'd love to hear your impressions of the chart Dodge Charger Daytona SRT concept. Me both are just

Nicole Wakelin  44:39  
okay. Mister I hang out with Fancy Pants people you go.

Sam Abuelsamid  44:43  
Did you wear fancy pants by the way?

Roberto Baldwin  44:45  
I did not. You know what I buy pants for I bought the I get like, I go to what is that place called h&m

Nicole Wakelin  44:52  
or Uniqlo fancy pants?

Roberto Baldwin  44:54  
Oh no, I am. I am a very basic person. I had a I had a third I was in Copenhagen which then was very fancy, but I had a 45 minute conversation with someone about how awesome spam is. So

Nicole Wakelin  45:05  
I mean it is awesome this person wasn't arguing with you where are you? What do they

Roberto Baldwin  45:09  
know we had a we had a whole we had a whole like we were just talking about how much we love spam. Well others if the table were some of them were a little bit on board and others were like what is happening?

Nicole Wakelin  45:20  
Amazing. I was just talking about spam.

Roberto Baldwin  45:24  
I am a tourist within the world of the fancy pants. So the Dodge Daytona SRT has a larger

Nicole Wakelin  45:33  
Daytona as he

Sam Abuelsamid  45:37  
looks fancy at the Banshee propulsion system, the Banshee

Roberto Baldwin  45:39  
propulsion systems name I love looks fantastic. It looks amazing. I hope they can make it corner a little better. No, no current cars, but it's gonna have

Sam Abuelsamid  45:50  
a low center of gravity. Okay, exactly. So

Roberto Baldwin  45:52  
you're gonna get that so you get that nice little low center of gravity with an EV powertrain? You know, they're trying to figure out how to make noise with Banshee, I'm assuming assuming they'll just play Siouxsie and the Banshees songs over it whenever you take off. No, it looks great. I think you know, as a person who really appreciates muscle cars, but doesn't really want one, because I grew up with muscle cars. And it's like, oh, it's the car my mom drove, which is a weird thing. Like mostly my mom drove a wagon like now not my mom.

Sam Abuelsamid  46:22  
What did she drive?

Roberto Baldwin  46:23  
We had a challenger 70 Something challenge I forget whichever. And a javelin. Oh, excellent. Yeah. And the jet like the challenge that we had for a while nothing was more. I think it was nuts. My dad, on the other hand, had like a station wagon when they met my stepdad. So when they met my mom had his challenges. And he had a station wagon. And then, you know, and then later they got rid of the challenger. And they got a javelin and he had like a GMC quarter three quarter ton pickup single cab, which we drove her in all the time. The five of us with a single cab because no one cared about seatbelts back then. Except for your mom apparently. Because Long story short, I think this is an outstanding vehicle it looks it just oh my god, it's so beautiful. I mean, you say what you want about muscle cars and just loud dumb power. They you know, when they're listening? Yeah, when they're when they look good they look it's just such an American art form to be honest. And it's yeah, no, I am very excited about when this comes to market. I would love to drive one probably again. Probably wouldn't buy one because it's my mom's

Nicole Wakelin  47:45  
mom's house right but

Roberto Baldwin  47:49  
his mom's cars go Yeah, that's that's the weird thing is as mom's car I you know, I'm a big fan of like the smaller rear wheel drive like cornering you know, the BR Z's the gra the six is the Miata is the

Nicole Wakelin  48:02  
you can't have this Porsche kids have to ride like on the exam or something

Roberto Baldwin  48:06  
well, you might be a challenger I don't just like getting the car and they just had to see this the flappy seat was just an L just flop forward you know I get the back cup back. No, it's outstanding. If I get one in for review, I'll go and show it to my mom.

Nicole Wakelin  48:24  
I am stupidly excited about this like I love the and I I wanted that the sound that they've created where they have a funky name the fret Zonic chambered exhaust system I think that's awesome. I want to I want to drive it and play with it. I'm just basically going to be the highway going Xuzhou us trying to hear what it sounds like at different you know how depending on how aggressive you are on the gas pedal the accelerator I love the go pedal I think it's fantastic that they gave it this like we're not going to make the you know really powerful vehicle book either through five Eevee sounds like oh heck no, we're gonna make it sound like a Dodge. We're gonna make it sound like a muscle car. We don't care what we have to do. It's gonna be noisy. I'm like Yes Bring it I love that. I think the styling on this is killer and I love the Banshee like face they've created like in the style of the Hellcat. Yeah, the little Banshee logo. I think scary. Also, when you're talking about corny it's funny, I was watching a movie last night called day shift. It's a stupid goofy corny vampire movie that's like on Netflix or something just came out. Okay, but there's a scene where the bad guy vampires are chasing the good guy. And they're all in Dodge Chargers and their take em like they would not be able to corner like that. Who did this movie? I could accept the vampires I could accept everything I'm like now you've lost me. There's no way a charger is garnering like that.

Roberto Baldwin  49:44  
There was a movie a few years ago where there was like clearly a car that was built the corner and then like a muscle car was keeping up with it and I'm like no. I just walked away like no

Nicole Wakelin  49:55  
you can sit you can accept all this is like a car journalist thing you can accept all sorts of stuff in a work of fiction you like now you have gone too far that car cars

Roberto Baldwin  50:03  
that are I'm sorry.

Sam Abuelsamid  50:07  
And you know when when you hear the the sound, the sound effects they add to some of these because usually what you're seeing or what you're hearing in a movie what's what actually happened? You know the Foley work that they do with cars sometimes it's like I know that car and I know it doesn't sound anything like that

Nicole Wakelin  50:29  
they go around the corner it sounds like this really burly engine wheel spinning you're like all he did was turn. Like where did all of that noise come from?

Roberto Baldwin  50:38  
One of the Marvel movies where they added engine noise to the Audi e Tron GT.

Sam Abuelsamid  50:42  
Yeah, I

Nicole Wakelin  50:43  
think so. They did they really missed that

Roberto Baldwin  50:45  
engine noise to the Audi e Tron GT. I especially love old movies where they're driving on dirt and there's wheels there's there's wheel squeal. But it's Yeah.

Sam Abuelsamid  50:58  
In squeal in the in the famous chase scene and bullet you know, I think somebody counted up how many times hubcaps fell off. Like I think 11 hubcaps that came off the Mustang or the charger during the during the course. Yeah, there was on the charger. That was those chasing at the bad guys chasing Steve McQueen. 11 different hubcaps fell off.

Nicole Wakelin  51:25  
As as happens, you know, there's just it's

Sam Abuelsamid  51:28  
automatically regenerate. All right, they're

Nicole Wakelin  51:30  
all there. You lose one. There's another one right behind it. You lose that one. There's another one. It's like

Sam Abuelsamid  51:34  
shark's teeth. Yeah, sure. Except rows of teeth. You know, the extra Wilmore pops out

Nicole Wakelin  51:39  
they know how you're gonna drive they've got extra is just there just in case like as

Roberto Baldwin  51:42  
as one can you know there's another one.

Sam Abuelsamid  51:47  
Okay, because yeah, I wanted to get your thoughts Yeah, because there's been some controversy about how loud the exhaust system and the fact that they're even doing an exhaust system on this what

Nicole Wakelin  51:57  
is so what is the controversy you're seeing? It's It's too loud and they shouldn't do it? Is that the general idea?

Sam Abuelsamid  52:02  
Pretty much? Yeah, I mean, those PS 126 126 decibels, which is the same as the Hellcat those people

Roberto Baldwin  52:09  
are stupid if you don't 120 decibels that's way too loud. But

Nicole Wakelin  52:13  
it is not there's no such thing as a too loud car. I think Tim can discuss would agree that you need a burly girl and

Roberto Baldwin  52:21  
exhaust someone who's on stage a lot and has to listen to a lot of loud stuff. I get the mic

Nicole Wakelin  52:27  
but that's not a car if I'm buying a muscle car that has an angry little rocker No not a runner. I don't know what send is a banshee make

Sam Abuelsamid  52:34  
banjo it's something completely different.

Nicole Wakelin  52:36  
I want it to sound I want a band I'm thinking like the the animal the Banshee. Like at the end. Oh like a mythical animal. Scream scream right they scream if you can a band G on the side of your car. And you got a fancy frat Zog chambered exhaust system, you want it to look you want it to sound like it looks be noisy and aggressive and wake up the neighbors at 4am can

Roberto Baldwin  52:59  
be aggressive and not noisy.

Sam Abuelsamid  53:02  
Wouldn't surprise me is if they end up because since this is all software controlled, using some geofencing to limit where you know how loud it gets. So maybe in residential neighborhoods, you may be limited to 60 or 70

Nicole Wakelin  53:16  
it could have a button just like you know like a lot of sports cars you have this sport exhaust you just push a button and it's quiet like you just have a button you push it so you don't actually

Sam Abuelsamid  53:23  
wake up Mustangs got quiet mode, right? Like

Nicole Wakelin  53:25  
I'm not actually a proponent of like waking up your neighbors I try not to hate your neighbors I try to be very quiet when I creep out of the driveway for a flight at four o'clock in the morning. I feel bad when I am allowed car I'm like Sorry

Roberto Baldwin  53:37  
everybody laughs Sarbat she's

Nicole Wakelin  53:40  
the Banshee. Nicole's go to the airport.

Roberto Baldwin  53:44  
It's 800 volts. That's all I care about. Yeah, that's fast charging.

Sam Abuelsamid  53:47  
Hopefully, hopefully. Well. depends on the

Nicole Wakelin  53:52  
weather. Yeah, depending on the charger

Sam Abuelsamid  53:54  
potential yesterday, yesterday, I was trying to charge a Lucid Air from a 350 kilowatt charger and only got it up to about 180 Oof. Yeah.

Roberto Baldwin  54:05  
Burns. Really? Yeah.

Nicole Wakelin  54:07  
Was this like an a public charge or

Sam Abuelsamid  54:09  
something? It was it was an EAA station in Santa Barbara. Santa Barbara.

Nicole Wakelin  54:14  
That's not good. That's a

Sam Abuelsamid  54:14  
problem. That was that was the second charger. The first one didn't didn't work anything at all. So there's that again. There's thanks Electrify America.

Nicole Wakelin  54:22  
It just keeps coming back. Everyone's complaining about it and rightly so.

Sam Abuelsamid  54:25  
But they did put out a press release last week saying that they're going to do better. All right.

Roberto Baldwin  54:29  
Well do better promise to

Nicole Wakelin  54:31  
do better talk is pointless. I want to see the charging stations working.

Roberto Baldwin  54:34  
You're acknowledging like that's the first that's the first step.

Sam Abuelsamid  54:39  
I guess I guess all you've got a problem. You have the

Nicole Wakelin  54:41  
chance to rent Tesla, like a couple of weeks ago at a hertz thing and he debate is it cool? Maybe I'll rent a Tesla just drive an Eevee to house and then he suddenly looked he's like wait, I'm out of town. I don't know where I am. I have to find charging stations. If it doesn't charge. I have to do a bit good bit of driving. I actually need the range on it. He's like no, and I've seen the problems we've had with chargers trying to Use it on a plugin where it's not a big deal if he has like, what if I get myself stuck in the middle of nowhere outside Chicago, and I can't get a charging station? I'm sitting here for eight hours. He's like, I can't do it. I got work to do and he didn't do it simply because of the charging network. Otherwise he does

Roberto Baldwin  55:13  
is that the Tesla's the one car you couldn't? Yeah, they're the most reliable right? But he

Nicole Wakelin  55:18  
was still nervous, but he's like, I don't know where they are. I don't know what's gonna happen and what is the charging network isn't where it needs to be in the middle of nowhere places I'm going I Nope, not gonna do it. And it was with Ted, like you said with Tesla, which was the reliable one. So

Sam Abuelsamid  55:28  
all right. Monterey, Robbie, you were there? Oh, yeah. You're hanging out with Acura. Acura. Tell us about the precision Evie concept.

Roberto Baldwin  55:43  
The precision Evie concept it looks really nice. It sort of looks I want to say the prelude the prologue but it you know it has that accurate design. What do you call design language that we've seen over the last few years on the SUV so it's it's it's right in line with what you'd expect from the automaker. It looks really nice. Accurate is of the two of the Acura Honda. SUV bolt Voltron, I don't know what you want to call it. Accurate is going to be the first to go to go Evie Honda is going to do hybrids for a long time and then go Eevee so accurate is gonna be Evie while Honda goes hybrid. And so I think this was a good sort of coming out for them showing that the first ones are going to be based on the GM Altium platform and then they'll have their I think it's called E architecture or probably look that up. Yeah, that's a pretty easy name. And you know what, good I didn't have to look that up. I didn't like was it e architecture? Yeah. Okay, cool. No. II archaic er, it's like super handling all wheel drive Honda's like, this is what it is. This is what we're gonna call it. We're gonna call it exactly what it is e architecture. fancy names? No fat No, like weird. Like, no, just what is it? Yeah, call it that. So II architecture. You know, it'll be interesting to see what's coming next. I'm very excited about the potential for Integra EV I couldn't get anyone to say they're going to make an integrity V. But they're going to make an integrity. Evie. That's that's, that's coming. You know, it's it's, again, I think I I've said this a few like, I've seen it way too much. But it's a marathon not a race, not a sprint. Even with regulatory you know, 2035 which we've known for like two years anyway, I think everyone's like, Oh my god, like we knew about this two years ago. Plus when you know what's going on with Europe, but the exact same timeframe? I think accurate especially is should be fine. Honda will be fine because they're just gonna take everything they learned from Acura, you know, that's their, it's their performance brand is to performance, luxury brand. And if you can sort of, I mean, that's what everyone's been doing, but they've been electrifying their top end of their lineup, and then moving that down, you know, Mercedes is done. It's fortunate, well, Porsche, that everything's a top end to be honest. But I think, you know, it's, they're coming to market like, you know, Volkswagen did with a with an with an SUV first because that's what people want. So, um, you know, we'll probably get a couple more SUVs, then we'll get some nice sedans, and then we'll get a you know, like probably electric CRV first from from Honda.

Nicole Wakelin  58:30  
Okay, I have to say I'm reading the press release. And you're talking about names and let's just call it E architecture because that's easy. They're talking about the next generation of accurate HMI with an intuitive and easy to use hyperbolic curve, transparent display and haptic touch screen and then it says, particle glitch bootup graphic. Oh, yeah, hard. Glitch. I feel like that's the name. I don't want anything on my car named glitch glitch. Yeah, like,

Sam Abuelsamid  58:53  
it's hard, especially given modern software defined vehicles. You don't want glitches.

Roberto Baldwin  58:59  
It's literally they call the front particle glitches, critical glitches as well. The facia is the particle glitch design, right.

Nicole Wakelin  59:06  
I feel like that's that's a marketing choice. It's like,

Roberto Baldwin  59:09  
they should just call it the startup screen.

Nicole Wakelin  59:13  
Just the start of that. If you had a car company, what is this it's called car.

Sam Abuelsamid  59:20  
Speak speaking of poor marketing choices, about 12 hours after they unveiled the precision Evie concept. They put out another press release announcing that they're 2024. Evie that is going to be built on the GM Altium platform. It's going to be called the z dx

Roberto Baldwin  59:38  
00 emissions dx. Remember this edX,

Sam Abuelsamid  59:43  
I remember this edX, I drove this edX review it for Autoblog back in 2010.

Roberto Baldwin  59:53  
It was why

Sam Abuelsamid  59:55  
I Yeah,

Roberto Baldwin  59:56  
exactly. Like Ford, the Ford Maverick. They're like well, we have to do x a to z dx. Maybe everyone will forget.

Sam Abuelsamid  1:00:03  
Back a name for the Integra. They went from Ilex back to Integra. Why not give it a name?

Nicole Wakelin  1:00:09  
Give it a name. Why did we give it

Roberto Baldwin  1:00:13  
they spent all their money on particle glitch. That's what we found

Nicole Wakelin  1:00:16  
out. There's other things. What's the other one? Somebody else is doing? The logic

Roberto Baldwin  1:00:19  
the ZX the cross talk. Remember those? Remember? Yeah, remember? Because they weren't good? No, there's a there's a couple, because there's a cross tour in my neighborhood somewhere. And every time I see it, I'm like, Oh, I like sort of wince. I'm like, Oh, that was

Sam Abuelsamid  1:00:32  
I actually didn't mind driving this edX. edX was actually pretty cool to drive. Here's a little weird to look at.

Roberto Baldwin  1:00:41  
Yeah, that's the problem. Yeah.

Nicole Wakelin  1:00:43  
So there's this weirdness so I also in the ACR accidentally typed in the show notes that Lexus has the TX coming and I'm like the Lexus Texas. Come on. Come on. Like just nobody like I thought I can this is gonna be the latest taxes.

Sam Abuelsamid  1:00:57  
Yeah. Does anybody not say these things out loud?

Nicole Wakelin  1:00:59  
I mean, like TX. It's not like what's that tiny little state? No, what's the gigantic state that like? Like this Texas?

Sam Abuelsamid  1:01:05  
Oh, Toyota is based in Texas now.

Nicole Wakelin  1:01:09  
Yes, the Lexus Texas. I mean, tell me that's not what you see. When you see Lexus dx. You think Lexus Texas? Yeah.

Roberto Baldwin  1:01:15  
I talked to the CEO of Pollstar. I was at Monterey and we were talking about names and like, okay, so you have the Pole Star one pole star, tude pole star, three stars four. I'm like, Are you gonna go with Nate? Because Volvo is going with names. And his reply was like, he's like, I've been in too many meetings, where people trying to come up with names. And then you come up with a name and it turns out someone else owns it. It was sort of like the overall thing was names are a pain. Yeah, he didn't say that. He's like, they're just a pain in the ass. He's like, I can just call this the Pole Star for or the Pole Star five. Or six or, or I can call this the Pole Star to sedan old the Pole Star Three SUVs. I could just say that

Nicole Wakelin  1:01:55  
at some point you got to give me I think memes are better.

Roberto Baldwin  1:01:58  
The poles are 34 poster 942.5.

Nicole Wakelin  1:02:01  
I don't know what when do we stop?

Sam Abuelsamid  1:02:05  
Well, I do agree that I prefer names because they tend to be more memorable. But there's also you know, the challenge of Lexus tags. Well, that well, there's the fact that sometimes a name may have a different meaning in a different language. This would certainly be desirable.

Roberto Baldwin  1:02:27  
This is true. Chevy Nova, which is the Chevy no go in Spanish.

Sam Abuelsamid  1:02:32  
It's right. Or the Butte, the Buick LaCrosse, which meant something different in Quebec in Canada. Oh, yeah. It had a less than desirable connotation. And there's been no there's been many others over the years.

Roberto Baldwin  1:02:50  
number to call to just look it up. Oh.

Sam Abuelsamid  1:02:57  
Good job as a task for the listener to

Roberto Baldwin  1:03:02  
oh my gosh, you're just on your Google homework today.

Nicole Wakelin  1:03:06  
No, and now what the heck am I gonna get for like my search engine stuff now to look in that up? Go? Go Yeah, good job. Yeah.

Roberto Baldwin  1:03:12  
Do private search for that stuff.

Sam Abuelsamid  1:03:17  
All right. Moving on from the accuracy hex. Did you see Did you go see the Lincoln l 100.

Roberto Baldwin  1:03:25  
I did I got to sit in it and everything. And it's huge.

Sam Abuelsamid  1:03:30  
I left home buck in the studio and saw the clay model. I didn't they were still working on the on the one that they shipped out to California.

Roberto Baldwin  1:03:39  
It's, it's it is because so many companies are trying to make sure that their concept vehicle becomes an actual vehicle at some point. Lincoln's like, Nah, we're gonna make this giant Batman, Batman The Animated Series vehicle. You're gonna sit in it. It's going to have a screen on the ground. It's going to have a little car a little chess piece they call it car that you can turn around. It's going to have 14 foot wide doors the doors are 14 feet wide just because he was the Pole Star to I think yeah, close and the roof pops up and

Nicole Wakelin  1:04:19  
roof is the freakiest thing the way. This opens it looks like something it makes me think of a spaceship. Like when you're like that spaceship doesn't look scary. Wow. Oh my god. Here comes a tractor beam like it the way it opens up. It's free. It's

Sam Abuelsamid  1:04:31  
like watching the giant squid and 20,000 Leagues Under the Sea coming at you

Nicole Wakelin  1:04:35  
right like now it's coming for you. You do

Sam Abuelsamid  1:04:37  
let's let's welcoming you.

Nicole Wakelin  1:04:39  
Oh, is that what it's doing? Yeah, okay. I actually like it. I think it's kind of cool to have a concept car, concept car. But all that like the practicality of it. No, your windows. Your roof would hit the top of every garage or wherever in your doors would hit everything in sight. It would never work out but it's it. It's not an easy concept.

Roberto Baldwin  1:04:56  
It is very snazzy. I really liked it. It's It's completely impractical. The the wheel covers are like three centimeters off the net, even that like half a centimeter off the ground. The wheels that would actually go inside and the wheel covers on the outside to reduce turbulence and to look just look cool. So it kind of looks like a Tron car.

Nicole Wakelin  1:05:15  
Let's have a Tron Bible.

Sam Abuelsamid  1:05:18  
That animated floor when I was in the studio, getting a walk around with the designers. I asked him about that, because I don't think you were Oh, yeah, I think you were both at the LA Auto Show. Last November. Did you go to the Subaru stand?

Nicole Wakelin  1:05:35  
Yes. Oh, was it like,

Sam Abuelsamid  1:05:37  
they had the animated floor there. And if you were standing on this animated floor waiting for the press conference to start and you look down, it was it was like a, like a grassy field or something. And really disorienting.

Nicole Wakelin  1:05:51  
And it changed if you're just standing in their booth after the fact when it changed. You've walked in and it looked like fake dirt. And then all of a sudden it changes to snow in your brain does this like whoa, where are my feet like? Exactly.

Roberto Baldwin  1:06:02  
So for the for this floor, because you're actually not seeing that much of it. Whereas in the Subaru booth, it's just all encompassing. It's not as bad as it was. It's not as it's not as as disorientating as the floor at the super

Sam Abuelsamid  1:06:16  
well, the thing that they told me, you really have to look down and

Roberto Baldwin  1:06:19  
then when you look down, it's like it's sort of like out of focus, because you're seeing this one thing as opposed to this big giant. It's like moving your your face really close up to a picture. It's kind of like that. Yeah, sort of flying over things. I don't know. I think though, if you were driving and that was happening, that's that's a bad scene.

Sam Abuelsamid  1:06:36  
Well, I asked them about that. And they said to Yeah, they had seen that Subaru booth at the show. And he thought about that. Well, no, it's already been working on this anyway. But they took that into consideration, they actually slowed down the animation, because that was one of the things that they studied that you know, because that was moving a little bit too fast. The way the Subaru did it, and so they slow it down. So it's actually a I guess a very slow moving animation. It's supposed to give the impression of flying over clouds.

Roberto Baldwin  1:07:08  
Yeah, yeah. Like Like there's sand dunes and then clouds something purple. Which I made a joke that we're flying over Prince's house. But no, I you know, I like I like a big ridiculous concept car that looks cool. And and that's exactly what it was. And it was fun watching them having to open and close because they had to remove the back part of it and do all this stuff. And I had to shoot video of it before they did the unveiling. And the area was so tight. And I was like, oh, and I shot a bunch of video. And so this is just a little side note. As a professional. I shot five stand ups without the audio turned on. So there are now five stand ups saved on my computer of me with just dead silence. I'm just a mime. I gotta put I had to put into cards in between it like like an old 20s movie and put some piano

Sam Abuelsamid  1:07:59  
to do some ADR? Yeah, remember what you said and rerecord the audio and yeah,

Roberto Baldwin  1:08:04  
so I had to redo once I realized what I did. I did it all again. Because I'm a professional.

Nicole Wakelin  1:08:10  
You had to do all of it again.

Roberto Baldwin  1:08:12  
Oh my god. Yeah. Yeah, dude, I missed one though. So I ended up having to do voiceover for one of them. I thought I covered them all, but I missed one. So stressful.

Sam Abuelsamid  1:08:25  
So yeah. Any other highlights you saw in Monterrey that

Roberto Baldwin  1:08:30  
the Myers makes? Ramza spanks. looks outstanding. The Evie version. I went over I talked to him i i told him how much I said I was at the Volkswagen wasn't going to do it. I actually prefer this one. I think the other one, it's smaller. You know, you're not going to get to you can get one without a lot of range, which is totally fine. The idea of driving around in a Myers makes it's an Eevee in town, sounds outstanding. You can solve crimes you can wacky race or crimes. Anything you want to do with a dune buggy you can do with this. Within your neighborhood. I don't know how well I would do in Boston and winter or in Michigan, but here in Miami and my neck of the woods to bundle up. You

Sam Abuelsamid  1:09:19  
know where we're extra layers. Yeah, just

Roberto Baldwin  1:09:21  
throw some extra. I mean, if you've got you have a convertible you driven around in the cold with the top down because it's convertible, only down to 40 degrees. C that's perfect. You're good. Meyers Manx right just banks. Just remember that it's gonna be max mink. It's like Ty con. I'm like It's like you're you're wearing a tie. And you're you're William Shatner and you're yelling con.

Nicole Wakelin  1:09:46  
I can't tie

Sam Abuelsamid  1:09:50  
nicely, not thought of it. In those terms. Okay,

Roberto Baldwin  1:09:53  
yeah. William Shatner wearing a tie yelling con.

Nicole Wakelin  1:09:56  
Oh my gosh, now that's in my head and I'm not really competing. You'll never forget your

Roberto Baldwin  1:09:59  
way Thanks, man. He's ready to Spanx take on Shatner wearing a tie. You're welcome. You're welcome.

Sam Abuelsamid  1:10:09  
Okay, so now we all know how to pronounce PT icon. Okay, next touchscreens, touchscreens are bad. So say the Swedes

Roberto Baldwin  1:10:22  
say we all Yeah.

Sam Abuelsamid  1:10:24  
So the there was a study recently done in Sweden that used a bunch of modern vehicles, and they ran through a series of tasks. They did the I think the did the 2005 Volvo V 17 MG Marvel, our BMW i x sadly own dacha Sendero, Volvo C 40. And also a Tesla Model three, and a few others that have varying degrees of, of user interface with with touchscreens and physical controls. And they had a four tasks that they had to do while they were driving, and they measured the amount of time it took to complete the four tasks. The let's see, the BMW i x, I'm sorry, the MG Marvel R was the worst took 44.9 seconds of looking away from the road to do these tasks. The BMW IX 30.4 seconds, and the 2005 Volvo only took 10 seconds. And even the even the new C 40. The current C 40 Only took 13.7 seconds. What do you think?

Roberto Baldwin  1:11:48  
Makes sense to me after having driven lots and lots and lots and lots and lots of cars. I'm still a huge fan of actual physical things that I can touch and feel and have muscle memory and I have to like steady my hand.

Nicole Wakelin  1:12:02  
Just a button for things just a normal button would be nice. I don't want to have to dig into your infotainment to turn up the heat or turn down the heat or I like I want it to be a display for things like my ultimate world would be the display for things with everybody else would be a nice easy to use button that didn't require stupid dials or stupid touch pads. Just give me some buttons to do the things I need to do.

Sam Abuelsamid  1:12:25  
That I agree. And and you know those buttons and dials, they they never freeze up. They never locked up. Nope. They don't need rebooting.

Roberto Baldwin  1:12:35  
I can turn the heat up and down with my hand. I can turn the audio down.

Nicole Wakelin  1:12:39  
You know where? Once you get used to it in your car, you don't even you don't have to look you're like volume there. Why don't you just it takes two seconds as opposed like the bill sailed within your you know, your your your hands are off the wheel? Um, yeah, otherwise, my hand and my eyes are off the wheel because I'm trying to off the road because I'm trying to find where it is on the touchscreen, you know?

Sam Abuelsamid  1:12:59  
Yeah. Well, and this, this was the other thing that they also measured. In addition to the time, they looked at the angle, down that the driver had to look to how far away yeah, and in that mg, which is not not the classic mg, but this is mg, the MG brand is now owned by SAIC in China, that mg, the driver had to lower their line of sight by 56 degrees to see the bottom edge of the screen six

Nicole Wakelin  1:13:30  
degrees, that's probably significant.

Roberto Baldwin  1:13:33  
Other stuffs usually

Sam Abuelsamid  1:13:34  
Hey, yeah, the Mercedes GLB was only 20 degrees. So it's, you know, and this this is yeah. So basically up, you know, closer to your line of sight when you're watching the road. And this is part of the reason why so many modern vehicles have the screen mounted, you know, kind of like a tablet up on top of the dashboard, instead of being down in the center stack, so that you're even even when you do look at the screen, you can still see the road and your peripheral vision. So it's it's a much safer solution.

Roberto Baldwin  1:14:11  
Or at least my car and I've gotten used to my touchscreen, I'm like, well, that's great, but it's still taking you three taps to do something that should just be a twist or a flick. Just bear flick. That's all

Nicole Wakelin  1:14:24  
that's the only acceptable motions, flicks, twists and flex

Roberto Baldwin  1:14:28  
flicks and taps. push presses.

Sam Abuelsamid  1:14:34  
All right. Then there was an article in TechCrunch by some guy named Roberto Baldwin. He's much about Lamborghini.

Roberto Baldwin  1:14:43  
He's a dirty hack.

Sam Abuelsamid  1:14:46  
So what did Lamborghini have to say?

Roberto Baldwin  1:14:49  
So I spoke with Lamborghinis brand new CTO, Mr. Moore. I used to speak with Murray to pretty often he was the former CTO, and the new CTO, you know, does sort of still moving along at the same pace. When it comes to electrification and talking about what they're going to do. What was interesting is that and you know, the reality is, well, it's the reality is that Lamborghini, like, you know, years ago, you could just be like our zero to 60s, you know, four seconds, it's three and a half seconds, it's 4.5 seconds, and I'm gonna be like, Ooh, well, there's a there's a Kia now, zero to 63 point, and 3.6 seconds, a Kia.

Sam Abuelsamid  1:15:33  
Not that there's anything wrong with chemo. No,

Roberto Baldwin  1:15:35  
TV is the easiest. Yeah, the EB six GT, I'm just very excited to drive that. But it's on a Lamborghini. And so how does Lamborghini sort of how do you? How do you go from this performance brand? That, you know, for years, like we have these giant engines that we've stuck in these machines, and they're going to really fast? And so they realize that they can't, you can't really compete on just going from zero to six? Could you hit an upper limit when it comes to a what people can actually enjoy? You know, I think there's a there's more than a few people that have done, like launch control in in Eevee. And they're like, I don't like that. Don't do that, again. Because it's, you know, it's sort of exhilarating when you're the driver. But it's also sort of fleeting, because you've done it like three times, you're like, Well, I'm never going to do this again, right? You think you're going to, but you're only going to do it when you like a family member comes over or friend. So how do you you know, so Lamborghini is has realized that that's not going to win them. People like just that that arms race is essentially over, everyone's going to have, you know, these two second, these two and a half seconds zero to 60 times. So that's it's done. Don't let's let's not like so. So they're looking at drivability, essentially. And I believe during our conversation, we actually talked about the Miata, the drivability of the vehicle, and also the, what you're getting what you're getting from Lamborghini as a as an automaker. And so when people get out of the vehicle, it's more important that they've had a good time, as opposed to just going, you know, in a straight line very quickly, which is, you know, it's refreshing, and it's smart. And if you're at this point, if you're only going for that zero to 60 time, your your your, your the competition, it's everyone's gonna hit the upper limit. And that's it. I mean, literally everyone, you can say, well, the Tesla plan will do it in two seconds. So will the lucid and so will probably Kia in six months. Yeah. It's just everyone can go that fast. It's just that they don't. That's

Sam Abuelsamid  1:17:33  
right. It's more about the overall experience. And and Tim Kunis has told me the same thing that you know, we're not, you know, with with our EVs, the dodgy V's, we're not necessarily going for being the absolute fastest, at least not with with the road cars. It's more about the overall experience of driving this vehicle. And I'll be curious to see, I mean, obviously, with dodge, you know, it's about the noise and the shift points, because they've got a multi point transmission. You know, I'd be curious to see what Lamborghini is going to do. Did he give you any hints about you know, specifically what kinds of things that they would do differently to set Lamborghini apart from other brands?

Roberto Baldwin  1:18:16  
Well, they have their LDV AI system which I've tested before in a believer her a con at Willow Springs, what happened was is that went to Willow Springs, hurricanes on a very big vehicle to begin with, I stuck a helmet on. And that's that's, that's me with my head cocked at like a 45 degree angle, I've just kind of crammed in there like a sardine in a tiny in a tiny little cannon trying to drive this vehicle. And the idea was the hurt the LDV AI system helps you helps correct your bad driving. And because I was sitting at the weirdest position possible, I could actually feel it like correcting like, like bad lines, like as I started to like slip a little bit. And so they talked about making that, you know, better and upgrading it for an electrified system, because they have so much more control with torque vectoring. And so they're, you know, he's talking about how we're going to be, you know, adjust differentials in just torque vectoring. So the driving experience is a lot nicer. And he's like, we want to go beyond what everyone else is doing. And you know, he gave props to, to Porsche and to Audi, which, of course are both part of the Volkswagen Group, which Lamborghini is part of. But the reality is both of those vehicles actually drive really well, because of all the engineering that Porsche has done on what Audi have done with those vehicles. And so Lamborghini wants to go to the next level because they have to deliver that super car, sort of drivability in a world where supercars aren't the fastest vehicles anymore. Or or they're just on par with again, a Kia.

Nicole Wakelin  1:19:50  
Yeah, well, this supercar the idea of the supercars like everything's kind of a supercar when you get down to it with the power they can do

Roberto Baldwin  1:19:56  
so yeah. So it's a lot. It's gonna be a lot about design and they're gonna do some You know, he's like, Well, I can't tell you what's going to happen in five years, which is something you know, I talked to the CEO of Lamborghini six months ago, and it was the same thing. He's like, we don't know what we don't know. And so the, you know, they're thinking about sound, you know, they don't want to have artificial sound, they're trying to figure out how to do a sound that's, that ties in with the Evie powertrain. And so it's, it's super interesting what Lamborghinis is thinking about for the future. Because, you know, for years, Ferrari was sort of like, that's the one everyone was getting. And then Lamborghini sort of came out of nowhere. It was like, look at these vehicles, and, you know, to help that they were purchased by the Volkswagen Group. So they have all you know, they got some investments and kind of allowed them to be Lamborghini, which is which, you know, which Delia allowed Volvo to do. And so it's, it's, yeah, I'm curious to see what's going to happen in the next few years from Lamborghini, as they start moving forward into electrification. And they say, you know, CEO, CTO, the whole team seemed pretty excited about what they what they can accomplish. So let's see, I'll see what happens.

Sam Abuelsamid  1:21:02  
Okay. And, you know, since the whole world seems to be going for electric vehicles, last couple of items we've got. As you mentioned earlier, Robbie, State of California has been talking for a couple of years now, at least, about eventually banning sales of new internal combustion vehicles in the state. And air resources board made that official think that Thursday 2035 Is the end date for new ICs, you'll still be able to buy and sell used ICS for the foreseeable future, and it's gonna still gonna be a lot of those around, it's gonna take a long time for all those to be retired and replaced, but no more new ones. And I guess the state of Washington quickly followed and passed their own similar rule. So it's at least two states now. And I think most of the other dozen or so states that follow the California, Zev mandates, zero emission vehicle mandates, have also indicated that they're going to go down the same path of banning new internal combustion vehicles after 2035. But even before that, the bank Australia, a big major bank, downunder, announced that it will no longer provide financing for gasoline vehicles starting in 2025. So if you want to buy a non Eevee and 2025, in Australia, you'll have to find a different bank to get you a loan to for that thing. Any thoughts?

Roberto Baldwin  1:22:39  
I mean, I live in California, I've dealt with cars my entire life. We have a lot of cars, I remember how horrible the smog was, and the LA area and you know, most of the cities that smog is still not great. And I think you know, it's a, it's a car centric culture here in California, even you know, when I moved to San Francisco, one of the things when I was talking to the college was like, don't bring your car like, I ended up not driving my car for like, 18 months while I was here. Well, when I first moved to San Frisco, I lived in the city, I worked in the city, I went to school in the city, there was literally no reason for me to drive a car. That said, the rest of the state is not San Francisco. And so we're very car centric. And so because of that, and because we don't like breathing, you know, trash. You know, we, California as a state has been very, has been sort of like at the forefront of emissions. And, you know, this is this is expected two years ago, there was an executive order signed by Gavin Newsom, we have 12 years to get this right. You know, 12 years ago, we didn't have a Model S. So between you know, we had we had a leaf the leaf was introduced 12 years ago, and this is how far we've come in that time. So we still got another 12 years and everything, we still have the leaf, we still have the lever, we also have a lot more, you know, money going into the entire system. And I figured 12 years, one or two of the of the gas station, you know, the exons of the world are going to figure out oh, you know what, let's throw a couple charging stations. Let's throw a little bit of this let's do that. So I think there's gonna be a lot of change both in the Evie world but also in the infrastructure world because I think at some point everyone's like, you know, we can beat Electrify America and we can make money on this we can do this we can do that and more vehicle to load will be coming on which will be helpful for you know, California when it comes to the fact that pg&e keeps light in our our state on fire. If you can power your own house instead of having stuff coming over the transmission lines and starting a fire that's going to be great. So it's you know, it's it's it's an inevitable it's an inevitability. gas engines had a pretty, pretty sweet run.

Sam Abuelsamid  1:24:58  
And then you know, 130 500

Roberto Baldwin  1:25:02  
And they're not gonna, they're not gonna think people, there's there are people who think that it's going to be a like, oh no 2035 Someone's going to come and take my car. No, no, there's still going to be millions and millions and millions of gas cars on the road for decades, because they're so well made. Now.

Sam Abuelsamid  1:25:18  
There's there's 290 million registered vehicles in the United States. 289 million of those run on either gasoline or diesel.

Roberto Baldwin  1:25:27  
Yeah, they're not going anywhere. You know, it's gonna be a long time. It's and I think the I think I made this, I wrote about this for life wire. And I said, Remember when we all sort of made fun of people who had cell phones. They're like, look at that guy with this can't even like, you can't even leave his house. It's gotta be connected all the time. Hey, guess what, we all have cell phones. I think I think a lot of a lot of people are like, Oh my God, look at this person with their Eevee Look at this. And then, within 10 years, they're gonna be like, Oh, I have an Eevee. And they're gonna kind of forget about the fact that they used to make fun of EVs. It's I think it's the same thing that happened with cell phones. It's gonna happen with EVs where people were like, I can't even believe you have an Eevee. And they're gonna buy an Eevee. And they're gonna be like, oh, man, it's gonna be like them when you cool. This is kind of cool. Like, all the first all the iPhone, people are like, Oh, my God, this is so much better than I can do all these things. And you know, they're gonna get an Eevee. And like, Oh, my God, I have all this torque that can do all these things with this vehicle. That's, it's yeah, I am. I know there are people are angry. But I think overall, it's it's not it should no one should be concerned about what's happening.

Sam Abuelsamid  1:26:36  
What about New Hampshire?

Nicole Wakelin  1:26:38  
What as far as EVs I mean, well, we just don't have a huge, we still have a really terrible charging infrastructure in New Hampshire. And, you know, I see more and more of them on the road, you know, there's a couple I've seen a ravine or two, you know, there's a Tesla, I think, is actually in our neighborhood, because I keep seeing the guy all the time, we seem to drive it to the neighborhood all the time together. I feel like it's becoming more accepted. But you know, once as the laws change, knowing that the laws are changing, then, you know, 2035 is a long ways away, you know, in the future. This isn't happening tomorrow. It's not tomorrow, that you can't buy a gas vehicle in places, you know, it's like, like, you're okay. And it's not like as soon as they stopped selling, and like you said, every gas station is just like, well, closing up shop or done today. Like we're shutting down, we're shutting down boys shut it all down.

Roberto Baldwin  1:27:25  
A big lever that just pushed.

Nicole Wakelin  1:27:28  
Like in Star Wars. No, it's not gonna happen in that way. You know, it's, it's, it's not like turning off the Death Star. It's not like that. And so, it's gonna be you know, it's gonna take time for it to, to happen. And I think, you know, if you look at how much like, that's when it's 2035 How many years is that? Do you know?

Sam Abuelsamid  1:27:46  
1313 years? Look at 30

Roberto Baldwin  1:27:48  
I just, I just jumped to December and say 12

Nicole Wakelin  1:27:51  
Okay, so let's say 12. So look 12 years backwards from now in 2010. If you asked him, like, did anybody was anybody even looking at plug in hybrids is any but like, hybrids were weird.

Sam Abuelsamid  1:28:01  
2010 We had the original volt, right leaf, and the Mitsubishi I Miev.

Nicole Wakelin  1:28:07  
And you look at how we're pedaling. Oh my god, they're making electric cars. Now these things are weird is a strange, strange, scary technology

Roberto Baldwin  1:28:14  
range of like 10 feet

Nicole Wakelin  1:28:16  
high. And you look at how much how much the public attitude has changed, though, in that timeframe, how much our attitude towards these vehicles have changed and our understanding just the public put another 12 years on that. It's gonna be it's gonna be okay.

Roberto Baldwin  1:28:28  
The fact that the Monterey car week is like, a lot of the news that came out of it was EVs. And like, I needed to do some pickup video, some pickup B roll of the Lucid Air, the Sapphire, and I had, like, I kept walking by and hanging out and talking to them waiting for people to move out of the way. Yeah, like it take video of the Lucid Air and you know, it was an I get hoarse. That's a $250,000 car. But I

Nicole Wakelin  1:28:54  
think you know what, I think it's going from being like, these are weird, stupid little cars that nobody wants, like as a perception. I don't mean that was that was the perception from that. Like, nobody wants these stupid weird little cars. They only drive in California. I say that as someone from New Hampshire, nobody wants these here to like, oh, that's kind of cool. Okay, that's interesting. Oh, that's different.

Sam Abuelsamid  1:29:12  
Brands like Lamborghini and dodge. Right?

Nicole Wakelin  1:29:16  
Exactly. So when you stop just having this idea that everyone thinks is just a little car no one wants and only hippies in California drive to Hey, this is really kind of cool. This is a neat car. This is this is beautiful and luxurious. And oh my gosh, have you ever driven an Eevee suddenly this perception changes the scariness of saying goodbye to your guests car gets much less so and you have plenty of time to get your head wrapped around the idea of like, you know what, maybe and by then there's by them the chances that you don't know at least one or two people who have purchased an Eevee and who like it and you've gotten to sit in one and experience it. Most people will have by then even if they don't own what, so it makes the whole switch a little bit easier to more palatable.

Roberto Baldwin  1:29:57  
Yeah. Plus, I mean, I think a lot of people are It's going to be their second car for a while. And as soon as they get it, it's going to end up being the first car. I think what happens, it's the second car, and then it just sort of switches, well, I can get one for my second car, and then the other gas cars like, well, I need to go 700 miles and I don't want to deal with like, planning. So I'm not

Nicole Wakelin  1:30:18  
10 by the time you and once you have it is the second car and you get used to it. And the sort of weird Who Moved My Cheese situation of plugging in your car, instead of filling up your car becomes normal, it no longer feels weird to plug in a car, it normal, no longer feels scary to try to find charging stations and you get more comfortable with the, with the process. Suddenly, when it's your only car, it's not so scary.

Roberto Baldwin  1:30:40  
Yeah, yeah, I

Sam Abuelsamid  1:30:41  
think what's going to be the big challenge. And you mentioned infrastructure call. In New Hampshire, I mean, even even California, you drive around San Francisco, San Francisco is a city where a lot of people have to park on the street. And, you know, those, those consumers, they're the ones that we have to get the infrastructure really sorted out for them, because they, you know, somehow they're going to need to find have a convenient way to charge in order to go electric. And, you know, whether that is enabling chargers in utility poles, you know, having, you know, installing bollards along the, the, the curbs, or you know, where parking meters are, you know, just put chargers right there, you know, hook up a charger, at parking meters, things like that, to make it more convenient for them, as well as having DC fast charging, in the places where they go on a on a semi regular basis. So you know, when they go grocery shopping, or whatever it might be assuming anybody still goes to an actual physical grocery store and 2035 instead of just having a robot, bring it to them. There, you know, those are the kinds of things that are going to need to be sorted out and we've got time and you know, with the infrastructure bill was passed earlier this year, got seven and a half billion dollars to build out more public chargers. And you know, the goal there is really to put them into under a put a lot of them a significant proportion of those into underserved areas. You know, whether that's rural areas, or places where said, people have to rely on street parking or whatever it might be.

Roberto Baldwin  1:32:29  
It's, it's, it's funny, because they're like, Oh, how are we going to get these on the street? I might go to Norway or Germany or a lot of you just on the street. They just have charging things where you park your car because there's apartment buildings, there's just charging things. And is it go? Yeah, it's it bring your own cable. So no matter what, like weird thing you have, like you just plug it in, you plug it into your car and you just wander off. I can

Nicole Wakelin  1:32:51  
remember a couple years back, we were in Norway and I drove the car that we had rented up this like twisty turny road to this fancy restaurant. That restaurant was amazing. At the very top of the mountain. There's nothing there. Like this little restaurant and a bunch of goats running around in the field outside outside the restaurant charging station. I was like, You got to be kidding me. So they can get like charging infrastructure at the top of a mountain in Norway with a bunch of goats. I feel like we can figure this out by 2035.

Sam Abuelsamid  1:33:19  
Yeah.

Roberto Baldwin  1:33:21  
get our act together people. Yeah, gotta get

Sam Abuelsamid  1:33:25  
on that note, since we have a lot of stuff to catch up on this week. We're not going to do any questions this week. But we'll be back with some next week. And you know, if you if you got questions, you can always send them to us on Twitter. You can shoot us an email at feedback at wheel bearings, dot media, use the link on the website, whatever you want to do. And thank you for listening. And we'll talk to you next time later.

Roberto Baldwin  1:33:49  
Bye.